Nigerian community mourns death of three-year-old boy in Galway elevator accident

The scene of the tragic accident. Three-year-old Solomon Soremekun became separated from his mother and was trapped in an elevator where he died.Irish Mirror

The Nigerian community in Galway is helping a distraught mother come to terms with the tragic death of her three-year-old son after an accident in an elevator shaft in an office building.

Solomon Soremekun lost his life when he became trapped in the elevator in the city center office complex on Monday afternoon.

A post mortem is to be held on the body of the little boy, who sustained fatal injuries in the incident at the multi-storey Hynes Building in Augustine Street.

The Irish Times reports that two official inquiries are already underway into the circumstances surrounding the boy’s death.

The boy and his three siblings were with their mother as she attended the Department of Social Protection offices on the first floor of the building.

The report says he then became separated and was trapped in the elevator where he sustained fatal injuries.

Two units of Galway Fire Brigade, ambulances, police and a doctor attended after the alarm was raised, but the boy was pronounced dead at the scene.

Ireland’s health and safety authority and Galway police are conducting separate investigations into the accident, which has shocked Galway’s Nigerian community.

The family, resident in Ireland for some time, had only moved to the West in recent months.

Pastor Larry Ovie of the Faith Christian Fellowship, a leading member of Galway’s Nigerian community, told the Irish Times that his sympathies were with the boy’s family.

He said, “The African community in the city is very, very upset. In the African community, we believe that anything that happens to one person happens to all of us, and every little soul is of great importance to us all.

“This is a loss to the boy’s family, to Galway, to all of us here in Ireland. We want to be there to support the little boy’s mother and all his family, and to grieve with them, and make sure that something like this can never happen again.”